After the 10k (and Denny’s), Jaime and I checked into a hotel across the street. Yes, I live in LA, which is not far from Anaheim. But we still hotel-ed it in between the two races, because, you know, 5:30 start times. We immediately fell asleep after we plopped on the beds.

Once we got up in the middle of the day, we went exploring downtown Disney. We shopped; we ate; we lived like happy tourists.

We went to bed at what would usually be a reasonable time. Of course, when you’re getting up around 4, there’s practically no reasonableness. So, I was still a bit tired in the morning. However, I let the adrenaline of the day and being there with a good friend perk me up. So, it was all good!

Also, the hotel moved their continental breakfast to be hours earlier just so racers could partake! I thought that was a really nice, kinda extra special thing. So, thank you Anaheim’s Maingate Ramada!

I made my way over to the race. (This time, since we had a hotel, Jaime slept in. After all, she’d recently had a long bus trip in from San Francisco. The least she deserved was a little extra beauty sleep.)

One thing that was kind of interesting to me in the first mile was that I’d been commenting back and forth on instagram with someone who was all, “Hey, I’m here too! What corral are you in? etc.” And in the sea of thousands of people, I happened to see him during the race – not in the corral when we could’ve actually been looking for each other. But during the race, I looked over and said, “Wait a minute! You look like a picture on instagram I saw this morning!”

Just thought that was a little random and funny, and figured I’d share.

Within the first three miles of this race, I saw three popular characters – and three very long lines. First up was Luke & Leia. I’d wondered where they’d been the previous day. Well, here they were!

I stepped in that line for a hot second before I thought, “I don’t have time for this. Also, my orange might look weird with their white. I don’t think this Luke/Luke picture is gonna be cool as my Boba/Boba one from yesterday. So, forget it.” Off I went.

Then, I saw a super long line for Chewbacca. As I’d opted not to wear my Chewbacca dress for this race (next year, baby!), I passed him as well.

And that’s when I saw him again. Darth Vader was back with his stormtroopers. The line was pretty ridiculously long, just as it had been before. But today, dressed as Luke Skywalker, come on. I had to.

So, I jumped in the long line. And this is where I’ll pick up next time.